Peter May - Cast Iron

‘Oh, you’re up at last,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what time of day you think this is to be getting out your bed.’

Fabien flashed Enzo a sympathetic smile.

‘I’ve had a heavy few days, Nicole,’ Enzo said.

‘Yes, well, so have I. The traiteurs will be here any moment, and I don’t want you two under my feet when they arrive.’

Enzo said, ‘And what about this birthday surprise that Fabien says you have for me?’

Nicole swung a dark look in Fabien’s direction, but the young man just shrugged and smiled. She turned back to Enzo. ‘He wasn’t supposed to say anything until later. But, since the cat’s out the bag...’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Fabien has proposed to me. And I’ve accepted.’

Sleep and hunger were immediately banished and Enzo opened his eyes wide. ‘Really?’ It didn’t seem possible to him that Nicole was even old enough to get married. Yet one more symptom of his relentless ageing. Because, as he reflected, she was probably twenty-two or twenty-three by now.

‘Well, that’s not quite the reaction I was hoping for,’ she said, folding her arms in a huff.

Enzo said quickly, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, Nicole. I should have said... Congratulations!’ And he gave her a hug and a kiss on each cheek. Then turned to Fabien. ‘To both of you.’ And he shook Fabien’s hand.

Slightly mollified, she said, ‘I’m going to move in with Fabien’s family and help in the vineyard. And my dad’s going to sell the farm and join us.’ She looked apprehensively at Enzo, who didn’t seem to know what to say, and quickly added, ‘Which means I’ll not be finishing my course at the university.’ She saw him about to open his mouth to speak, but cut him off before he could. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll ask you two to drink and eat up and find yourselves something useful to do somewhere else. I have a ton of work waiting to be done here.’ And, as an afterthought, ‘Oh, and happy birthday, Monsieur Macleod.’

The indoor market was open, but it was still early, and the good citizens of Cahors had not quite shaken off the night before to embrace the new day. There were some cars already parked in the square, and shops were opening up along either side. At the top end of the Place Jean-Jacques Chapou, beyond the plane trees dropping their leaves on the cars below, Enzo saw the faithful leaving the cathedral after morning mass.

Where the Rue Saint-James ran off from the square, the Café Le Forum had its tables and chairs out on the pavement for the smokers to huddle in the early-morning chill over their grandes crèmes and noisettes. Hats and scarves and gloved hands holding today’s La Dépêche open at the sports pages.

Enzo pushed the door open into its interior warmth and Fabien followed him inside. In silent accord the two men slipped on to bar stools at the counter, and Enzo nodded acknowledgement to Bruno, the proprietor, who was noisily nursing his espresso machine to produce a grande crème and a chocolat chaud for waiting customers in the back. They watched him for a long time in silence.

Then Enzo turned a grim face towards his companion. ‘I suppose I should be ordering champagne, to drink a toast and congratulate you on your forthcoming nuptials.’

‘Well, that would be very civilised of you,’ Fabien said. ‘But perhaps I should pay for it, since it’s your birthday.’

Enzo flicked him a quick look, suspecting sarcasm, but saw none in the young man’s face.

Fabien turned to Bruno. ‘A bottle of your finest champagne, please, and two glasses.’

Bruno looked at him in surprise. ‘You do know what time it is?’

‘It’s my birthday, Bruno,’ Enzo said.

‘Then you should be old enough to know better. It’s a bit early to be drinking champagne, don’t you think, Monsieur Macleod?’

But Fabien just shook his head. ‘It’s never too early to drink champagne.’

Bruno shrugged. ‘Your funeral.’ And he turned away to retrieve a bottle from the cold cabinet and find a couple of champagne glasses.

Fabien turned his head towards Enzo. ‘Why do I get the feeling you disapprove?’

Enzo raised an eyebrow. ‘Of you getting married?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, I mean, that’s up to you. Nothing to do with me.’

‘Nicole thinks the world of you, you know. The way you’ve looked after her. Got her that scholarship to stay on at university when her father couldn’t afford to keep her there.’

Enzo stared at his hands in front of him on the bar, mildly embarrassed. ‘She’s the brightest student I’ve had in more than twenty years, Fabien.’ He turned to look at the young man. ‘It’s not that I disapprove of her getting married. It’s just... one more year and she’d have completed her course. A brilliant career in forensic science ahead of her.’

‘I’ve tried to persuade her to stay on. But she won’t have it. Her father’s not fit to run the farm on his own anymore. And that’s why she wants him to come and live with us. So she can look after him.’

The conversation was interrupted by the popping of their champagne cork, and crystal-white Mumm’s frothed and bubbled in the glasses Bruno had placed in front of them. Solemnly, the two men lifted them to chink together in a toast. ‘Long life and happiness to you both,’ Enzo said.

‘And many happy returns to you.’

They both sipped the chill white wine, its bubbles bursting in effervescence all around their lips. Enzo said, ‘You’d just better take bloody good care of her, that’s all.’ He paused. ‘Or you’ll answer to me.’

A wry smile spread across Fabien’s lips. ‘I’m shaking in my shoes, Monsieur Macleod.’

And Enzo grinned.

It took several moments for everything that assailed Bertrand’s senses to register in his consciousness. First, it was low-angled sunlight shining directly in his eyes. That brought instant, sharp pain to a head which already felt as if it were gripped in a vice.

Then came the cold. A deep, numbing chill that penetrated his bones, and he realised he was shivering, soaked by a dew that had almost frosted in temperatures which had plunged overnight.

The final, and completely overwhelming pain that next gripped him came from his right leg as soon as he tried to move it.

He seemed to have no control over it, but any shifting of his body brought excruciating pain forking through the leg and up into his back. His brain was slow and fogged by exposure and pain, and it took several more moments for the realisation to dawn on him that it was broken.

He lay on his belly with his face in the dirt, and became aware of how shallow his breathing was. Then, gradually, it came back to him why he was here, what had happened the night before. Sophie. They had taken Sophie. And the shock of recollection sent his heart rate soaring and produced a surge of adrenalin that enabled him to overcome the pain long enough to drag himself up into a semi-sitting position, giving free vocal rein to his agony as he did.

He heard himself call out, a disembodied voice, ragged with distress, that echoed away along the stony bed of what, it became clear to him now, was a dry river. As his cry died away, there was no other sound to replace it. He was, it seemed, the only living creature in this dead place. And then, very faintly, from some immeasurably far distance, he heard the almost imperceptible sound of traffic. A memory returned of the motorway he had seen the night before, and he realised that he could never reach it now.

He looked back up the slope he had fallen down in the dark, God knows how many hours ago, and it seemed almost insignificant to him in daylight. A stony bank, overgrown with wild grasses and shrubs, a drop of no more than five feet. If he could stand up, he would see over the top of it.